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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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Congressional districts currently represented by Democrats accounted for more than three times as many certified H-1B labor filings as Republican-held districts over the past decade, according to a new analysis of federal labor data.
LayoffHedge, which mapped nearly 6.9 million certified Labor Condition Applications to current congressional districts, found that Democratic-held districts accounted for 5.17 million filings between fiscal 2015 and the second quarter of fiscal 2026, compared with 1.69 million in Republican-held districts. Four vacant districts accounted for the remaining 56,596.
The divide, however, was not reflected in recent growth. The eight fastest-growing districts for H-1B filings between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2025 were all represented by Texas Republicans, according to the analysis.
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The figures do not measure visas issued or individual workers. Instead, they track certified Labor Condition Applications, the filings employers must submit to the Department of Labor before petitioning U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for H-1B workers.
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A single application can request more than one worker, and one worker may be associated with multiple filings, including extensions, amendments or changes of employer.
"The data shows where employers asked to place the work. It does not show that either party causes or drives H-1B usage," a spokesperson for LayoffHedge told Newsweek.
The findings come as the Trump administration moves to tighten restrictions on legal immigration pathways, including the H-1B program. Since returning to office, administration officials have replaced the annual H-1B lottery with a system that prioritizes higher-paid workers, expanded existing $4,000 and $4,500 biometric screening fees to some H-1B extension petitions, and proposed eliminating a 60-day grace period that allows laid-off H-1B workers to remain in the United States while seeking new employment. A separate effort to slap a $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions filed for workers outside the United States was blocked by a federal court.
Immigration restrictionists within the MAGA movement have argued that the H-1B program is too often used to replace or undercut American workers, rather than to fill genuine shortages of highly specialized talent. Supporters of the visa, including some technology executives and pro-business conservatives, argue that restricting access to skilled foreign workers could make it harder for U.S. companies to compete and expand.
"H-1B almost always gets argued at the national level, and that hides where the work actually is. Every certified filing carries a work site address, so we mapped all 6.9 million of them to the congressional district they landed in," a spokesperson for LayoffHedge said.
The largest concentrations of filings were found in Democratic-held districts anchored by major technology and business centers, led by California's 17th Congressional District, represented by Representative Ro Khanna, with 323,966 filings. New York's 12th District, represented by Representative Jerrold Nadler, ranked second with 259,001 filings, followed by California's 16th District, represented by Representative Sam Liccardo, with 233,165.
"As the beating heart of America’s innovation economy, our community has propelled America’s global economic leadership by attracting the best minds and most innovative spirits on the planet. Shutting America’s doors will push the next generation of great company founders and leaders to China, India, and elsewhere—and compete against us," Liccardo told Newsweek.
The leading Republican-held district was Texas’ 4th, represented by Pat Fallon, with 106,892 filings. Georgia’s 7th District, represented by Richard McCormick, had 96,705, while Texas’ 24th District, represented by Beth Van Duyne, had 81,784.
Newsweek has reached out to the above representatives for comment and is awaiting a response.
Together, the 10 highest-ranking districts recorded 1,727,766 filings, slightly more than the 1,694,909 attributed to all 219 Republican-held districts. That comparison is mathematically supported by the district table, but it reflects a highly concentrated distribution rather than the typical filing level in either party’s districts.
The Democratic total includes the District of Columbia’s at-large district, represented by nonvoting Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. It recorded 38,814 filings. Excluding the District of Columbia leaves 212 Democratic-held voting districts with 5,133,801 filings.
The four seats listed as vacant as of August 6 were California’s 14th, Florida’s 20th, Georgia’s 13th and Texas’ 23rd districts. The Office of the Clerk of the House lists special elections for California’s 14th District on Aug. 18 and a runoff for Georgia’s 13th District on Aug. 25. Election outcomes will change how the affected filings are classified by party, although the underlying district totals will not change.
The findings come with an important caveat: all filings were mapped onto current congressional boundaries and assigned according to the party that holds each seat today. As a result, the figures do not necessarily reflect which party represented a district when a filing was made. LayoffHedge said it used work site ZIP codes and Census geographic files to assign filings to districts, mapping 99.5 percent of records, while excluding those that could not be reliably matched.
According to LayoffHedge, 40 congressional districts accounted for half of all mapped filings and the 50 largest districts for 55.3 percent, with Democratic-held districts generally concentrated in major technology and business hubs. The group also found that IT outsourcing and staffing firms made up a larger share of filings in the 10 highest-volume Republican-held districts than in the 10 highest-volume Democratic-held districts, though that classification was developed by LayoffHedge and is not part of Labor Department data.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and James Debens
Update, 08/12/26 8:35 a.m. ET: this article was updated with comment from Representative Sam Liccardo.
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